Tips For Tracking Your Kids Cell Phone Without Taking It Away

When it comes to keeping kids safe while they use technology, things can get quite difficult. For some parents, the answer is to completely take away a child’s phone to look through the apps, and see if there is a digital footprint left behind. This of course doesn’t really help, and could very well prove to be futile. If you’re serious about tracking your child’s use of tablets and phones, and you want to keep them safe, you’ll want to look at a few tips and tricks that can help you get this done without having them hand over the phone to you. There are easier, better ways to get through this, and the following focuses on just that.

Why You Should Confiscate Phones

You could very well have a point where you’re made at your child, and you just want them to behave so you threaten to take away their phone. This is very common, so don’t feel bad if you’ve done this in the past. However, as you move forward, make sure to understand that this doesn’t really help. There are several issues that can come into play as a result of this issue. For instance, if you take their phone away, what happens in case of an emergency? The pay phones that use to line street corners are no longer around, and they are hard to find even in public areas. What if you take away their phone and they are stranded? What if they are in trouble? How do they contact you? This is the type of issue that can no doubt rise up if you’re not careful, so it’s imperative that you don’t just take things away. It’s better to just track their phone and whereabouts, the easy way.

Understanding The Benefits of Tracking Your Children’s Phone

Before getting into the tips that will help you get tracking a bit easier, you’ll want to understand the simple benefits of tracking. The simplest reason to go this route is to ensure that your child is not visiting sites that are explicit in nature. Furthermore, you want to be able to control whether or not they are downloading apps that are going to charge money to use. You also want to be on top of things in case they are being bullied, or if they are engaging in activities such as sexting, and other issues. These are problematic, and could lead to serious problems down the line.

Knowing where your child is at all times is a good thing about monitoring. Tracking their phone’s whereabouts can help you get peace of mind as to where they are, and what they are doing. Many parents find that it’s difficult to keep track of children without software, as they could easily lie or perhaps not phone in when they were supposed to. To avoid issues like this, tracking software can help identify location. In the case of emergency, many apps will tell you the longitude and latitude of the location of the phone.

Tracking A Kid’s Phone With Ease

First and foremost, you are going to have to discuss with your child the fact that you’re going to be monitoring their usage. You will want to make sure that you set up their phone initially, before they even get a hold of it. You don’t have to disclose whether or not you’re going to place software on their phone, but that’s something you may want to do. There are some apps that can be hidden from the phone, so if they do get a bit savvy, they aren’t going to delete the monitoring option.

Cycle through several apps and figure out which is going to light, and best to use. You could always try to use free options, and test run many solutions, but you’re going to want to invest in paid solutions if you want more features to come with your phone’s tracking software. Some software will give you a free trial, but that will not give you all the tools needed to make fair assessments. When in doubt, buy a software and test it for 30 days, and if you don’t like it, perhaps a refund can be issued. There are many apps, don’t settle for just one.

Talk To your Child About Monitoring Software

Make absolutely sure that you get the phone when setting things up, and then let your child play with it and customize it. You want to take this time to download a monitoring app to give you alerts in case anything is done that can be harmful to your child. This includes text messages, websites visited, and more.

Explain to your child that you’re not spying. This is not a matter of spying, but rather monitoring. There’s a difference that you have to discuss here. Spying is something that you do without telling the other person, and this is not that. This is a safety measure that you’re going to be running through to avoid several issues that many teens and children face on a regular basis. For instance, cyber bullying has become a serious problem, and many parents don’t even realize that it’s going on.

Go Through Trouble Areas With Them

Here’s one of the biggest tips that you can take with you today, and it’s in regards to discovering nefarious things. When you are alerted that your child’s phone is looking at the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, or are the victims of bullying, it’s time to talk to them. Do not be shy about this. Talk to them about what is going on and read through some of the things that you’re being alerted about. If there’s nothing going on, at least you can get a bit of peace of mind. If there is an issue, then you can at least intervene and get a handle on the situation outright.

At the end of the day, the biggest thing to remember about all of this is that it’s not spying. Your goal is not to spy, but to protect and ensure your child is using technology in a safe, productive manner, that’s it.

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